Tag Archives: US

Hi readers. There’s no way of knowing whether that other “American” being held and threatened with beheading is actually an American, or merely an Israeli hiding behind dual US/Israeli citizenship papers. Touring the Arab countries gathering data and information for the Mossad. Identifying targets for Israeli air strikes.

There’s no way we US citizens can know. And there’s no way the people prone to having their families wiped out as collateral damage from Israeli airstrikes can know, either. So maybe they chose to err on the safe side. And maybe they’ll err on the safe side again with Steven Sottloff, same as Israel’s done more than a thousand times during the past few weeks in Gaza. Innocent civilians aren’t all Israeli Zionists. Some of them might be Americans. Others of them might be of ambiguous and questionable loyalties.

Struggle for Egypt

07/23/2013 12:29By STEVEN SOTLOFF CAIRO

Pro- and anti-Morsi forces rally in the streets of the Egyptian capital in the wake of the overthrow of the president.

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Photo by: Courtesy

Esraa Abdel Fattah slides her heavy frame between the tables crowded around Cairo’s Tahrir Square, where Egyptians gather for a communal meal to break their fast during the holy month of Ramadan. Women momentarily forget their trays of overly buttered rice and greasy chicken to rise and salute the 35-year-old activist. “You are my hero!” yells a young female student, smacking her head into Abdel Fattah’s thick chest.

The meal was scheduled to be a celebration of the successful campaign that toppled president Mohamed Morsi. But Abdel Fattah is the star attraction. Her determination and vision helped outmaneuver the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement known for its street-mobilization prowess. But for all her joy and passion, Abdel Fattah shyly shrugs off the praise all were eager to confer. “It is the Egyptian people who are the real heroes,” she says.

Certainly it would be safer for all us US citizens of single country loyalties and citizenship if they’d force dual citizenship Israelis to identify themselves with the country owning their primary loyalty. Israel. No contest. Which is why they’re forever being caught inside the US selling US secrets to Mossad. How’d we manage to get a head of Homeland Security who was an Israeli citizen? A Supreme Court Jurist? A dozen US Senators?

I don’t know about you readers, but this entire issue has sneaked up on me. There’s something in the Pledge of Allegience about all that. I never knew people could be accepted for US citizenship without at least lying to claim loyalty before becoming spies and traitors.

Hi readers. Thanks for coming by. I have great news for you today. Your elected representatives and senators, and the US president are going to make sure you get some benefits from all these new shale oil deposits being discovered under US soil.

That’s right readers. They’re keeping it as a surprise, planning to spring it on you around Christmas. But since we’re about to have to export crude oil, because we’ve got so damned much, and since our gasoline prices go up instead of down because export of refined petroleum is allowed, the people who look out for your interests are going to tax crude exports when they allow it to be exported.

They let those multi-nationals send all the US jobs overseas, and now they’re going to let the refinery jobs follow them. But the government is going to make certain regular US citizens are going to be taken care of. Not just the rich wealthy Americans, the way they do in Saudi Arabia and all those backward barbaric greedy Middle Eastern places.

They’re going to tax every gallon, every barrel of US petroleum products and give every adult citizen $20,000 per year income from it. No matter what neighborhood those citizens live in, no matter what social strata they occupy.

EXPORTS OF LIGHT SWEET OILThe same oversupply problem that has bedeviled NGL producers is likely to occur with the light sweet crude oils being produced from Bakken and other shale plays.U.S. imports of light sweet crude (mostly from West Africa) will dry up by 2014, according to Total, due to rising production from Bakken and other shale deposits as well as because of U.S. refinery closures.But the increasing domestic output of light sweet crude is a poor match for U.S. refineries, which have been reconfigured to process much heavier and sulphurous oils and need heavier oils to produce more heating oil and diesel.Pressure will therefore build for the federal government to permit crude exports.CCL EXPORT RESTRICTIONSCrude exports are regulated under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (1975), the Mineral Leasing Act (1920), the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act Amendments (1978), and the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act.Crude is listed as a commodity in “short supply” on the Commerce Control List (CCL) drawn up and enforced by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) at the U.S. Department of Commerce.“A license is required for the export of crude oil to all destinations, including Canada,” according to BIS (15 CFR 754.2).

Imagine that. Just freaking imagine that. Those elected people recognize that the regular people of the US could enjoy some benefits from all these new oil discoveries under US soil. They know the citizenry’s having to compete with Chinamen and other foreigners at the gas pumps because the refined products are being sold to them instead of exclusively for domestic use. So they’re going to compensate for it.

Isn’t that nice?

Imagine that! Regular US citizens drawing benefits from US natural resources! Whether their parents and grandparents and great grandparents got into the oil business or not. Whether someone among their ancestors bought up oil rights a century ago, or didn’t!

Isn’t that nice?

They might keep it a secret from you longer than I said earlier, though. They’ve got a lot going on and they might forget to tell you about it at all.

Me, trying on caps at the JC Penny store: Why are some of these blue, other ones grey?

Store Clerk lady: Why the grey ones are Confederates.

Me:Oh. Okay, what are the blue ones.

Store Clerk lady, frowning: Um. Those are Non-Confederates.

Back when Keith Kelt and I were struggling through grammar school in Portales, New Mexico, a movie briefly drained our bluejeans pockets.

Suddenly every kid in town had to have a blue, or a grey cap with a shiny bill and crossed rifles at the front. Half-dollar at the JC Penny store had us all scrambling. Each of us tripped down to JC Penny the instant we could scrape together the gelt.

At which time probably all of us discovered we didn’t know enough to be making the decisions as we took cap after cap out of the bin, trying them on. Those of us who’d seen the movie weren’t educated enough to know much about it, aside from the fact it was bloody, violent, and exciting.

All we knew was that every kid who was anyone was wearing one of those caps.

Not until I made a fool of myself in class several years later in Junior High did I learn that the US Civil War wasn’t fought between Confederates and Non-Confederates.

I don’t see any way around it. I’m going to have to waste a little of my life being Dictator In Charge of this Great Nation. Begin by changing the Pledge of Allegiance to, “Whoopteedoo I’m an American. I’ve got better things to do than spending my time making the US Government feel important.”

Move the seat of government to Deadwood, SD, and buy all the people making a living off it and connected to it, along with the news media FEMA travel trailers to head up there after changing all the road signs along the way. Eventually they’ll end up dead in the water at Rabid City where they’ll be able to gaze contentedly at Mount Rushmore and go fishing daytimes.

Change the US Constitution so’s it’s concise enough so anyone can read it and have no doubt what it says and doesn’t say:

“Mind your own affairs, tend your own business, and leave other people to tend theirs. Step out of line or start arguing about it and the local vigilance committee or whatever they do there will take care of your ass. Run you out of town, tar and feather you, march you naked around with a sign, ‘He beat his wife’, whatever.”

Carefully remember today ONLY the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor carrying some vague message we should remain prepared against similar future events.

Carefully do NOT remember the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, the savage treatment of Allied POWs and civilians in occupied territories of The Greater-East-Asian-Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Carefully do NOT remember the beheading of hundreds, maybe thousands of prisoners, the starvation and death by disease of a huge percentage of other prisoners compared to elsewhere, almost anywhere among the armies of either side.

Carefully do NOT remember the overwhelming percentage of that conduct was perpetrated by enlisted men and officers below the rank of captain. Men who returned to their homes to be accepted within a couple of years as allies and fast friends of the US and other nations they fought, invaded, raped, pillaged and slaughtered only months earlier.

Carefully do NOT remember the Marshall Plan and the rebuilding of Japanese industry and infrastructure destroyed by the war, rendering much of US industry obsolete or absolescent. DON’T remember the 20,000 suicide-before-surrender Japanese cliff-jumps at Okinawa.

And while you’re at it see if you can find a feelgood argument with someone about the ethical and moral side of the atomic bomb, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Better to forget all of it than pretend to remember some of it. Crank up your Mazda, turn on the FM and listen to some oldies while you remember what it was like to have a job. What happened 1941 – 1945 had nothing at all to do with anything happening today.

You don’t remember a damned thing about anything that happened to other people. Just remember Santy’s coming to town.

Welcome

I’m sharing it with you because there’s almost no likelihood you’ll believe it. This lunatic asylum I call my life has so many unexpected twists and turns I won’t even try to guess where it’s going. I’d suggest you try to find some laughs here. You won’t find wisdom. Good luck.